A mobile radio frequency communication device is by definition mobile and as such it will have to connect to different base stations as it is moved. To find which base station to connect to, the mobile RF communication device has to perform network searches. And as it is highly beneficial to perform so called soft handovers to hard handovers, many network searches are necessary to be able to pre-empt any break in network coverage. Also, if the mobile RF communication device happens to lose its connection it shall continue to search until a network can be found. Such searches are performed by scanning frequency bands until a carrier that is associated with a service subscription for the mobile RF communication device is found and connected to.
As the searches are to be performed on a wide frequency spectrum and also until a connection is reestablished, a lot of battery power is used for these network searches.
Attempts have been made to reduce the number and extent of the network searches by storing and consulting the history of the mobile RF communication device, that is which cells has the mobile RF communication device been connected to previously.
Such solutions suffer from a drawback that they are only relying on the history of a single mobile RF communication device and that they also require continuous network searching to find a lost connection, albeit at a narrower spectrum.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and a mobile RF communication device that limits the network searching so that battery power may be preserved.